Category Physics

A laser pulse hits a tungsten surface on which iodine atoms have been depositied. Both the tungsten atoms and the iodine atoms lose electrons, which can then be measured.
Credit: TU Wien

Quantum jumps are usually regarded to be instantaneous. However, new measurement methods are so precise that it has now become possible to observe such a process and to measure its duration precisely – for example the famous ‘photoelectric effect’, first described by Albert Einstein.

It was one of the crucial experiments in quantum physics: when light falls on certain materials, electrons are released from the surface. Albert Einstein was the first to explain this phenomenon in 1905, when he spoke of “light quanta” – the smallest units of light that we call photons today.

In tiny fractions of a second, an e...

New ‘Robotic Skins’ technology developed by Yale researchers allows users to turn everyday objects into robots.
Credit: Yale University

When you think of robotics, you likely think of something rigid, heavy, and built for a specific purpose. New “Robotic Skins” technology developed by Yale researchers flips that notion on its head, allowing users to animate the inanimate and turn everyday objects into robots.

Developed in the lab of Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, assistant professor of mechanical engineering & materials science, robotic skins enable users to design their own robotic systems. Although the skins are designed with no specific task in mind, Kramer-Bottiglio said, they could be used for everything from search-and-rescue robots to wearable technologies...

Their ultrathin, conductive, and transparent hybrid NMs can be applied to the fabrication of skin-attachable NM loudspeakers and voice-recognition microphones, which would be unobtrusive in appearance due to their excellent transparency and conformal contact capability.
Credit: UNIST

An international team, affiliated with UNIST has presented an innovative wearable technology that will turn your skin into a loudspeaker. This breakthrough has been led by Professor Hyunhyub Ko in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST. Created in part to help the hearing and speech impaired, the new technology can be further explored for various potential applications, such as wearable IoT sensors and conformal health care devices.

In the study, the research team has developed ultrathin, transp...

In this artist’s conception of the Nebraska experiment, the white orbs represent two laser pulses, with plasma waves in their wakes. The waves interfere with one another after the laser pulses cross, and electrons ride the wakefield waves to higher energy.
Credit: Extreme Light Laboratory, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Force of light boosts electrons close to speed of light. In a recent experiment at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, plasma electrons in the paths of intense laser light pulses were almost instantly accelerated close to the speed of light.

Physics professor Donald Umstadter, who led the research, said the new application might aptly be called an “optical rocket” because of the tremendous amount of force that light exerted in the experiment...